Bosses drawn to rugby final

ENGLAND'S Rugby World Cup campaign has reached the business end of the tournament, but off the pitch it's the captains of industry who are looking to score.

The corporates packing down for Saturday's final between England and Australia reads like a who's who of British business.

Official sponsors British Airways and Lloyds TSB have already paid at least A$4.8m (£2m) to promote their brands during the six-week sporting festival.

But a new wave of top brass has converged on Sydney at the eleventh hour, either to cash in on World Cup goodwill or simply to grab a front-row seat.

Allders chief executive Terry Green and former Arcadia boss Stuart Rose are in town, as is Mervyn Davis, the chief

executive of Standard Chartered Bank. Others mixing business with pleasure included Icap chief executive Michael Spencer, Virgin chairman Sir Richard Branson and biotechnology magnate Sir Christopher Evans.

Lloyd Dorfman, the head of Travelex which is sponsoring ITV's coverage of the event, will attend this weekend's showdown as a guest of the broadcaster. ITV is hoping for an audience of more than 14m viewers for the final.

Cable & Wireless has entertained 10 corporate clients during the tournament and will be at it again during the final, along with investment banks JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank and ABN Amro. UBS has 30 companies and 300 delegates attending a conference in Sydney this week, and is taking about 170 guests to the final.

It is not known whether Axa's chief executive Claude Bebear and Vivendi Universal boss Jean-Rene Fourtou, who saw their country trounced by a Jonny Wilkinson-inspired England, will wait to see whether their nemesis can snare the ultimate prize.